The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2015, and October 31, 2016 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2016 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on November 3, 2016, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In Mancini’s (Tracce 24, 2014,
etc.) novel, a group of Italians in the late 1990s deal with problems involving
civil engineering and violence that has roots in Mussolini’s dictatorship.

In this work set in 1997, several
Italians’ lives intersect and diverge, soap-opera style. They include Manuele
De Mari, an architect who vividly remembers his young cousin’s drowning on a
trip to the beach 30 years earlier; Umberto Cassini, a toy salesman who suffers
from road rage; Deborah, a disgruntled factory worker who finds herself romantically
involved with one man after another; Davide Giorgi, an engineer who’s
determined to fix an old water tower built during the years of Fascist rule;
and other characters, including a shadowy killer whom Manuele eventually traces
to the home of an old man, a disillusioned athlete and architect who created
futuristic structures for Mussolini. Manuele also discovers that someone close
to him was one of the killer’s victims. Overall, the prose is choppy, full of
single-sentence paragraphs and awkward phrasing (“Manuele noticed the anomalous
throng of people on the shore”). The omniscient third-person narrator is a
hypermasculine stereotype who notes the make of every car (“a dark four-door
BMW with a hatchback, a Mercedes Station Wagon, a sparkling metallized Audi A3
with radial tires”). The book presents infidelity as default behavior, and female
characters almost entirely through a sexualized lens. The plot is complex, and
many of the book’s characters have promise. However, their compelling qualities
are obscured by the narrator’s interests. The book does address a lesser-known
element of Italy’s Fascist history, with its focus on architecture,
engineering, and public health. However, it does so through a meandering story
that subordinates its thrillerlike elements to the sex lives of its characters.

A complicated but unsatisfying story
about vicious murders and the overlapping lives of frustrated people.

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